September 2, 2022-March 2, 2023

At the time of writing, it has been 6 months since we completed the Her Odyssey Expedition. I wanted to take this storytelling ‘the extra mile’ and offer some insights and perspective from the wake of the expedition. What I can say, overall, is this: it has been challenging, rich, and the grace has come much in thanks to many of you.

All the parts of me are going through this massive shift: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social,… all the als. The best way I can summarize it is to confess that I am sore. In my body, at society, my very soul aches.

My eyes protest and refuse to focus if I stare at screens too long, scrolling gives me a headache. My hands still shake sometimes and my muscles tense for no reason. I wake to cramped legs, shoulders, and a tensed jaw. I dedicate at least an hour a day to consciously stretching my body and walks. 2-200 times a day I find my mind racing laps. I have a couple of apps that encourage me to sit still for about half an hour or tell bedtime stories into the wee hours of the morning, until I fall asleep.

I still can’t quite get a grasp on the movement of time. I remember a Guna elder telling me that their stories were not meant to have endings. They were to be told by leaders to lull the people to sleep in their hammocks. Your fading out is the conclusion, there is no designated end to the story.

As my lifestyle trends toward stationary, I’ve become something of a time traveler. My mind flits and I’m on the pampas, blink and I’m on the altiplanos (a majority of the time I find myself out on the open places). Vast openness crowds in. Which way do I go now? In the Now I find myself staring at the orange patch of wall on the landing of the stairs. Maybe I keep loitering there because it’s about the size of my tent footprint? A manageable domain. I also like the morning sunbeams.

Walking among my own kind, I spend a lot of time feeling…really embarrassed for people. Certain speech and mannerisms read like the social equivalent of having tucked your skirt into your pantyhose with toilet paper hanging out and you are brazenly standing there taking up the entire In-n-Out Burger counter screaming at the teenage boy in a jaunty white paper cap, while his decrepit elder-self is stooped over a tiny broom and dustpan in the parking lot being circled by sea-of-pavement-gulls.
This is what we’ve made for ourselves.
I hope your fries are hot.
If not, I hear you can return them.

Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, a friendly, overly chatty fellow put his two drinks on the front hood of his truck and drives away. That syrupy carnage distracted the sea-of-pavement-gulls and made me realize, relatively speaking, maybe I’m not that all that off kilter.

Most days on trail I woke to songs playing in my head. An embarrassingly large portion of the selection was rooted in my tweens (WOW series, burned CDs, crackling taped-over tapes, etc). Now I wake up awash in negative emotions with headline horror and End of Days narratives spinning in my head. It feels like waking up into an ongoing argument. I cringe to get out of bed because I fear the end of the day, when I lie awake for 2-8 hours of mental wrestling. But honestly, I’ll take this over the period of night terrors and waking up in cold sweat soaked through to the mattress like happened in the first six weeks.

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I’d begun the work of preparing myself for ‘after’ while still on the Dehcho. This Expedition has taught me to be where I am while also preparing and planning for whatever may come ahead. There is always change and motion, you just do what you can to be where you are while also visualizing what you want and need as you prepare for it all to shift ahead.
That’s all.

I knew it would be tenuous terrain so I journaled a broad outline with flexible specificity:

6-8 weeks in Idyll
8-12 weeks Filling my heart and time with Friends and Family (get physical touch! All the hugs and snugs)
9-12 months Rebalancing/Write a book
Initially upon completion, Neon and I plane hopped an overnight layover in White Horse with Piia & Oliver, friends we’d met on the GPT, and met Aldo, whom they made in the intervening years.

then on back down to Southern Canada where Arno and Elaine generously offered their woodland respite as a landing retreat, while they were tromping abroad. This afforded us the space and time to spread out, sort, repair, and scrub gear and bones as well as to begin figuring out “what’s next.”

As usual upon completion of a season, I immediately dropped ill. Except this time it was COVID. This being my second round and while it only tarried about half as long, it was just as weakening but without the loss of taste and smell.

The women of Neon’s family came up to honor our achievement and they set out on a whirlwind tour of some of our favorite spots in Alberta. From there I rode with Neon back down into the US. We drove into a haze of fire smoke across Idaho.

In Seattle we got absolutely spoiled by The Uncles, I’m talking champagne, steaks and lobster. They made us feel like queens. We also got to meet up with folks from our Trail Families.

I meandered the streets, wondering at the now shriveled blackberries growing through fences, the apples rotting in the grass, and the people panhandling outside fast food joints. I thought of the folks in South America who fed natural grains and corns to their chickens and bleached crackers to their children.

Then we went to Portland, where we were warmly received by John and Danielle, friends of Neon’s. We enjoyed delicious food and watching the swallows funnel into the elementary school chimney at the end of the day. Another evening was spent at a lively patio gathering of like minded outdoorsy and thru-hiker friends.

We stayed mostly in the tranquil home and garden, having been urged not to go for walks since the city is rife with homelessness, the rec paths around the city are lined by junkie camps, and the police cannot be relied upon to respond. Gunfire spat outside the house one night, yet another homeless shooting.

We stopped through Bend and I got to walk the Ponderosa Paws dog pack with Travi, talk fervent dreams and paths forward with Renee of Long-Distance Trails Consulting, and catch up with Andrew of the Sawyer crew.

Here I said goodbye to Neon under a Japanese Maple at the peak of its autumnal turn. A final goodbye under the birdshit streaked hulking satellite dish in the parking lot of a car rental place. Then I high-tailed it back to Canada, nauseous from this raw re-integration to my birth country and large population centers.

Amidst the feeling of constriction and strangulation, concerned that “the magic has abandoned me now that I’ve completed my purpose” our friends had gently and generously extended an offer to stay in their home in Banff for 6 weeks while they traveled. It was a meLesliemerizing godsend of a be-Kqueith-ment.
To amble someplace familiar with vast wilderness outside the back door and trails I’d come to know and love. BrightEyes took me for a stunning autumnal jaunt through golden larch and over soaring passes.

To putter around a home I feel familiar in and soak in the hot tub. Every other day I walked 15 minutes across the river to a yoga studio and tried new practices like aerial yoga! Amidst this heap of saving grace one night I came across the Chronicles of Narnia on their bookshelves and immediately nuzzled into landscape and adventures I’ve known since childhood.

I started with Voyage of the Dawn Treader because it is my favorite (Reepcheep) and then circled back to the beginning and read them all through. Interesting, when pacing known terrain, to see how differently I reacted. Noticing how often and what prompted the ‘leaky eyes’ and to look back over the half dozen other times I’ve read these over the years and within this context, to realize just how vulnerable I was.

Eva and I met up on another of our Divine Appointments. The first had been in the meat department at Nester’s. This one was half way up Tunnel Mountain Trail. She is a living gift of grace and gave me the balm of pointing out that I was Ruminating. Somehow, that context helped affirm patience with the process. On the mountain top, a bit of her guiding self shone through as she told a small group of women about the bison figure and tradition of the mountain. I delved in a bit more about a sweat lodge ceremony she had mentioned.

“The First Peoples had many names for this mountain, all related to the buffalo, as the mountain looks like a buffalo from several angles, notes Luxford, who grew up hiking and skiing in these mountains. ‘‘Restoring an Indigenous name has been proposed many times, and in light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and Calls to Action, it’s long overdue.’’
Bill Snow has spoken with Stoney elders and knowledge holders from the Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley First Nations about giving an Indigenous name to Tunnel Mountain. In 2016, they gathered at Tunnel Mountain, held a sweat lodge ceremony, and came up with a name, Iinii Istako in the Blackfoot language; and Eyarhey Tatanga Woweyahgey Wakân, which means Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain in the Stoney language.
“Eyarhey means mountain, Tatanga is buffalo, and Woweyahgey is the guardian aspect,” Snow explains. “Wakân means something that is sacred – something given to us by the Creator. All those different meanings went into this name.” Source

The cherries on top of the Banff Idyll were attending the GDTA AGM and concluding at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival.

Ambling among the creators, presentations, and events, seeing how this side of things is done (In the field you lead with caution and understate, in here you lead with confidence and bravado). I was happy to help out, meet some amazing folks, and got to fangirl out about Lil Buddha’s film and roll around the last few days of the festival together. I hope to return.

From there I bounced quickly through to see Gay on the hi-line and down through Kansas City to visit Sean, not-so-little-anymore cousin Becca, and big sis Mori before landing back in Silverthorne, Colorado.

I’d started this Odyssey feeling like I’d never had a home, that I am undeserving of any grounded foundation. Yet, the reprieve I feel when I come through the tunnel and see our Buffalo Mountain is a somatic experience, my entire body releases. Knowing trails well enough to run them in my mind. Walking into the Snow Chateau and collapsing into the arms of Brianne and Ellie, a home which has always, stubbornly been held open to me finally crashed through the cloud of insufficiency.

I’d come home. Family dinners, running away across the street to cross country ski the social trails as my lungs and body slowly recovered from the illness and adapted back to elevation. Rendezvous and meals with friends. Talking about penguins, gravity, muskox, persistence, family and all the interesting sorts of things with their bright eyed children. I love that place and my people there, you are a life-source.

Matt helped get my body and vehicle moving again, and after he did some final repairs on little old Esther, in late January I loaded up and headed west to Sacramento, California.

A PCT buddy, Oddball/Biscuit was deploying for 9 months and invited me to house-sit while he is gone. It kicked off with a fly by to visit Neon

followed by time with my brother and his husband, spent our February sibling birthdays together, most days I went to read and write at the Stanford Libraries, and concluded by getting to attend one Joshua’s performance of Don Giovanni with our parents who’ve been rooting for their kids since before the days we were born.

Honestly, I feel like I’m in the thick of it and thrashing about out in the weeds. Words like ‘Grief’ and ‘identity crisis’ coalesce with my old companions Darkness and social dis-ease. Something keeps triggering the internal ‘silent’ alarm systems.
Once when I was in high school my sister’s dog, Chloe, was barking her head off at the back window, we went to check the threat and it was a bag of soil laying in the yard.
That is how I feel.
Even so, I muster when I can and keep re-setting my focus on the many inspirations and all the magical ways things keep lining up.

Honestly reckoning with the fact that there are too many names to list of all the marvelous souls who’ve pitched in to help get us this far. Still, I weave your names into sinuous art in the pages of my journals.

To that end, as I close out blogging (only 1 more Post to go!) and focus energy on creating a book from the rise and rubble, the family who will bring the next gift of Her Odyssey to fruition, are already gathering. Guidance from Polly Letofsky, who is shaking up the publishing industry. I have teamed up with Donna as a Writing Coach. My intuitive, WordSmithing Aunt Marva has sparkled particularly close. Joey Shonka has entrusted me to pre-read his own text about walking across South America.

For reasons that those of you who have long been reading will understand, I do not foresee myself suddenly becoming a self-seller. I’ve already had a couple very encouraging emails from publishing houses abroad wishing to connect when it comes time for distribution.

So, if you are, or if you know someone in the publishing industry who is of an honest and curious spirit, with a good…whatever the modern digital equivalent of a Rolodex is… I’d be grateful to be in touch.

To that end and by the patient encouragement of a few of our stalwart supporters, I’ve kept the Patreon platform open to subsidize expenses while I write. Between my working part-time, your support, and the same sense of purpose and endurance which got me through the last 18,221 miles, it helps buy time to focus on this next leg of Her Odyssey.

A couple of you have also given generous parting gifts which have gone a long way toward setting me up with therapy, a California Parks Pass, shopping end-of-day veggies from a couple of weekly farmer’s markets within walking distance, and continuing to monthly Pay it Forward: this time to a local emergency shelter and relief efforts after all the flooding. I know what it is to wake up in a sopping state.

Until further notice, I can be found writing at John’s desk/watching squirrels, checking out books at the library, or walking dogs around Citrus Heights. In April, Neon and I will present at CDTC Trail Days.
I am taking bookings for speaking engagements in Spring 2024. For each paying gig, I intend to also donate a presentation to a local youth, community, or non-profit organization, so please reach out if you are interested in booking a talk.

If you are interested in hiring, contracting, collaborating, or otherwise working together; or, if you want to share your own spark of inspiration I can be reached at
contact (at) her – odyssey (dot) org

If you would like to make an individual gift to support this final and crucial stage of Her Odyssey,
my PayPal is @HerOdyssey
Venmo @Bethany-Hughes-26
Thank you for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed these efforts to share. Please consider subscribing to the blog or adding your name to the email list to be alerted of future offerings and opportunities to connect.

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In conclusion, to share a few favorite Healing Things
which may also help you bloom this Spring:

-Being in and around water
-The book Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
-Ambling (1-7 miles is my happy balance these days/ or around 2 hours outside)
-Sitting (meditating) regularly
-Journaling
-Make Art